"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Valentine, and other animals

On Valentine's Day, we drove out to Pete's ranch and picked up our new herding dog pup, Valentine. Rena the Akbash and Roo the burro were very anxious to meet the new baby, a bearded/border collie mix.

Jim and his new girl Val had to have an afternoon nap:Lest anyone think that the puppy is sweet, let's demonstrate what she's like when she's awake:The big dogs with the herd are blissfully unaware of anything outside their world:

Someone hit a jackrabbit at the end of our driveway, so I retrieved it for Rena, who was very sweet to me for the rest of the day.This is the handsome jack we saw Sunday morning, on the way to the ranch.This last one is for Prairie Mary. The red sheep were headed out to the range, so I snapped a few shots before they were loaded.

6 comments:

The guy in town who makes mountain man stuff is producing bear fur yarn. It's from the undercoat, the downy stuff from by the skin. Taxidermists comb the hides before they put a lining on them, so they're the source of supply.

Jake,The guard dogs have to be introduced to the herding dogs - no strange dog can come in or it will be killed by the guardians or stomped by the burros. Our guardians know our herding dog Abe, and will even play with him, but when he tries to move the sheep, they knock him down and harass him so much he can't do his job. We usually have to lock the big dogs in the stock trailer until Abe gets the sheep where they need to be.

Some guardian dogs are much nicer to their herding dogs, but ours are pretty stubborn.